The Truth in Strangers
by glindalupin
Summary: Mac doesn't know himself anymore despite Danny's attempts at revival, which he rejects. MacDanny. Rated T for language. Characters belong to CSI:NY.


A/N This was done for delgaserasca's ficathon at LiveJournal. My prompt was:

Beta 44:  
If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people. -Virginia Woolf

Ok, so this is MacDanny, as if any of my stories would be anything else. Well, there might be some Dirk/Al in the future... Anyhoo, it's kinda angsty and written to match the prompt, so expect Mac angst and Danny angst... Lol angst galore... Oh joy. but the rating is T for language and boy kissing.

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A harsh, haggard face glared at Mac Taylor, squinting its eyes and raising its eyebrow in mockery. It was a stranger's face, a face of someone Mac barely knew and understood.

His own face.

His fingertips brushed against their mirrored twin set, and he sighed deeply and let his head rest against the cool surface. Slowly, the running water tuned Mac back into what he was doing.

Submerging his hands under the water, Mac brought a bit up to his enigmatic face and tried to clean himself of the vacant expression he had taken on ever since… Ever since his world had been shattered.

Yet, Mac knew that something would never be the same, no matter how hard he tried. Even if he wanted to, and _oh,_ how he wanted to.

A noise startled Mac, but he recognized it as a locker. Whose, he had only the vaguest idea, but he didn't care. He wanted to be alone, or at least, he thought he wanted to be alone. He didn't know anymore; he lost all track of time when this time of year swept around.

"Mac? You in here?" Danny Messer's voice rang out through the locker room, and Mac realized in an instant that it must have been his locker he heard.

Another sigh escaped from his lips, and Mac reached for a towel to dry his hands and face, the _stranger's _face. His heart pounded in response to this intrusion, and Mac felt slightly annoyed, even if slivers of his shattered being were glad for it.

"Yeah, what do you want?" It came out rougher than Mac had wanted, even if he _was_ jilted and unnerved.

A tuft of hair preceded the rest of Danny's head as it poked around the door. He smiled warily at Mac, and for a moment, Mac felt as if he was looking at another unknown, as he had when looking at himself in the mirror. It was as if Danny wasn't someone he knew and had been working with for years. He was just another stranger.

A nervous stammer snapped him back into what was going on. "Um, I, uh, I was gonna go to Sullivan's tonight. You wanna come with?"

Mac shook his head and hung the towel back up with finality. "No, sorry, Danny. I'm not up to heading out tonight."

Danny walked closer to Mac and gestured hopefully as he spoke. "Come on, Mac. You gotta get out. If not with me, then with someone else or by yourself. You can't stay here all night, and you know it."

Mac's eyes glinted with anger, even if some of what Danny spoke was the truth. He _didn't_ want to roam around a cold building all night, but he sure as hell didn't want to go out in a city that she had loved so, on a night so close to the anniversary of her death. Didn't Danny know that?

He growled and turned away from both sets of unfamiliar eyes, the ones behind him and in the mirror. "What do _you _know? You're not my keeper…"

A hand dropped onto his shoulder. "But I'm not saying you have to forget about her either."

Mac's hands clenched together; the touch of this _stranger_ was overwhelming. He whirled around furiously, getting rid of the frightening grasp Danny had on him. He managed, in his frustrated confusion, to corner Danny into the door. "Then _why_ are you insisting I go out all the time or 'get a life' as you would put it?"

"I… I never said you didn't have a life, Mac…" Danny's protest was meek, and he didn't try to remove himself from his position between the wall and Mac. This wasn't the Danny that Mac knew. The Danny that Mac knew would have pushed him back and told him to fuck off. _So why is he acting like this?_

_Why am _I_ acting like this?_

Mac bit his lip and ignored the thought, focusing upon getting his point across. "Yeah, but you sure as hell act like I'm this lost soul you need to save or something. Just… just stop it, alright. There's nothing to save." His words were a whisper, ghosts dancing in the air, and he sighed wearily.

Danny was still pinned against the wall, but he still refused to struggle. "Mac, I'm not trying to be some knight in shining armor or anything. All of us know you're hurting…"

"So they sent _you_?" Mac chuckled darkly and ran a hand through his hair nervously, hoping that the obvious insult would piss Danny off enough to make him go away.

It didn't. Danny looked down at the floor in embarrassment. "No, I came on my own, Mac…" He looked back up and glared at Mac in defiance. The old Danny was starting to peep through, but he was still hazy and fuzzy.

Something within Mac stirred, as some of the old _Mac_ revived. But Mac wasn't aware of that. He returned the glare and spat, "I thought you said you weren't trying to be the hero."

"I'm _not, _damn it!" Danny yelled weakly. His exasperation led him to grab Mac by the lapels of the coat and shake him furiously. "You have no _idea_, do you?"

Mac's eyes widened in sudden fear of the face in front of him, screaming at him, but also shooting knives of _despair_ through his body. Danny's eyes, the stranger's eyes, suddenly reminded him of his own. His own hurting look, the one that always sent him shivering. Maybe Danny wasn't so strange after all.

He shuddered and tried to twist from Danny's grasp, but his employee held on. "Danny, _what_ are you talking about? Just… just let me go already…"

Danny shook his head and closed his eyes, sending surges of relief through Mac. "I can't, Mac. I just _can't._"

Irritation boiled up once again; all of this was confusing Mac, and all he had wanted was to go to the memorial tonight. And that certainly didn't involve this headache-inducing shouting match with a delirious Danny. "You can't _what_, Messer!"

Mac grabbed Danny's shoulders roughly and tried to shake him, much like the way Danny had him by his lapels. Danny's voice rose to an unnatural pitch. "I can't let you go, Mac. God _damn_ it! Damn _you_… damn you, Mac…" His lean frame began to shudder involuntarily as sobs racked through his body.

The room was filled with the sounds of his tears and strangled sobbing, and all Mac could do was continue to hold him at arm's length and watch him in bewilderment. His complete detachedness from the situation led Mac to believe that what others, and what he had started to believe, was true.

Mac had no heart or compassion anymore.

_No. No, that's not true._ The thought fluttered through the detective's mind, making him wonder what submerged part of his old self could have thought _that_. But Mac's thoughts halted when he heard the crying come to a halt.

He continued to stare at Danny, who sniffed and raised his head with shreds of his dignity still somewhat intact. And he stared down Mac with confidence.

Taking a step forward, Danny set off a few warning bells in Mac's mind, which now feared the stranger in front of him, and the stranger in himself, who was taking a deep breath and excitedly gauging the situation.

Danny's breath hitched when he stepped close enough for his face to be inches from Mac's. Mac could smell the hurt and anger, but his mind began to short-circuit at what was happening. "Mac, I… I don't want to let you go."

With that, he closed the gap between them and kissed Mac, his chapped lips molding into Mac's hesitant ones. Mac could feel his body warm, the vacancy in his chest begin to beat again, and his eyes fluttered closed.

A sigh escaped his lips, and instinctively, his arms wrapped around Danny's body. It was then, when Danny's chest crushed his hands into his defrosting body, that his eyes snapped open.

Mac detached himself quickly from the kiss, but he still had his arms hung loosely around Danny. His employee looked away, not wanting to face Mac. "You don't want this."

Danny looked back and uttered vehemently, "How do you know what I want, Mac? You don't even know what _you _want!"

The arms that were still draped around Danny were flung off when he stepped violently away. "Fuck you, Mac."

His footsteps echoed in the hallway as Mac watched him go with little remorse, just sleepiness.

The locker room felt void and dank, and Mac trudged to the sink, feeling wearier than he had before Danny had come in.

As he looked at himself in the mirror, Mac noticed that the bags under his eyes and the frown lines were forming a familiar picture in his mind. He reached out and touched the glass again. The callused fingers looked familiar, as well. Mac fought to concentrate on what Danny had subconsciously urged him to do: figure out what he wanted.

He didn't want to be alone anymore, and he did feel something for Danny. But Mac wanted it to be more than lust, and he wasn't so sure it was. Still, there was _something._ Mac sighed once again and determined to at least talk to Danny about it.

Maclooked back up at his face and blinked. His face. His face wasn't so vacant, wasn't so old, wasn't so _strange_. Not anymore. It was _his_ face, one he recognized after long last.

A smile toyed with his facial muscles, but Mac pushed it down when a draft ghosted through the room. He looked around and submersed himself in the memory of Danny's recent departure.

He gasped. As his memory Danny left in sheer sexual and emotional frustration, a sudden realization came to Mac.

That was _Danny_. The Danny he had known and succumbed to for a one night stand so long ago. The Danny that had murmured in his sleep that he loved Mac and had woken up the next morning to yell at Mac when he refused any more trysts or any responsibility for the one that had occurred.

It was all coming back together, and the truth was shining expectantly just on the other side of the locker room door, as well as within Mac's reviving heart.


End file.
